There were also sodomites in the land - קדשים kedeshim, consecrated persons; persons who had devoted themselves, in practices of the greatest impurity, to the service of the most impure idols.
Sodomites - literally, ” (men) consecrated.” The men in question were in fact “consecrated” to the mother of the gods, the famous “Dea Syra,” whose priests, or rather devotees, they were considered to be. The nature of the ancient idolatries is best understood by recollecting that persons of this degraded class practiced their abominable trade under a religious sanction.